For What It's Worth - a Roswell Stone!

I'm not into Roswell and UFOs and things that go zipping around the skies at night. But the PATTERN on this stone caught my attention for reasons I'll explain at the end of the article:

From the Roswell Daily Record
Strange rock raises questions
Frank Levine
Record Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 08, 2008

A strange rock with unusual magnetic properties - deeply scored, with what appears to be moon phases, a solar eclipse and the depiction of a supernova -- has been unearthed on the outskirts of Roswell. Its discovery has startled researchers, scientists and all who have examined it.

If proven to be of extraterrestrial origin, it will mark the second time in less than a century that the Roswell area has received communications from outer space.Roswell Mayor Sam D. LaGrone, who actually saw and touched the rock over the weekend, said, "It is a very strange looking rock.... I touched it, I felt it, and I just don't see how it could have been produced."

The rock, he said, adds another element to "the strangeness of Roswell," 61 years after the purported 1947 UFO crash and alleged cover-up by military authorities.

The deep wine-red colored rock, measuring less than two inches across, and weighing about 40 grams, was unearthed in September 2004 by Roswell businessman Robert Ridge, 50 , who said he found it while deer hunting in Cedar Hill, 17 miles "as the crow flies" from the 1947 purported UFO crash site.

"I saw some fresh tracks and followed them," he said. "That's when I noticed the partially exposed rock on the side of a sand pit. But I didn't pick it up at first because I thought there were deer up ahead, and didn't want to break off the pursuit."

When he realized the tracks were just goat tracks, he headed back the way he came, picked up the rock, and put it in his pocket, he said. After showing the rock to family and friends, he decided to keep it in a safe deposit box until last year, when curiosity to discover the truth about it got the better of him.

"In July 2007, I was introduced to UFO investigators Chuck Zukowski and Debbie Ziegelmeyer, and they were astounded at what they saw," he said.

Zulkowski said the investigators where so impressed, they presented the rock to a number of experts, including prominent New Mexico anthropologists, "all of whom claimed they had never seen anything like it."

"They said there is no way this rock could have been scored or drilled in the way it was, without sophisticated modern equipment, like lasers and high speed water-fed grinders and drills," Zukowski said. [Well, if it's an "artifact from the aliens of outer space, ahem, then wouldn't this be expected?] The artifact's image appears to be literally "pulled" from the surface of the red iron ore rock.

Apart from its strange appearance, Zukowski said, the rock has "peculiar" magnetic properties. "It retains its magnetic polarity by which it will spin a compass needle and register its magnetic field on meters," he said. The oval rock will also spin, depending on the position of a magnet over the image surface, he added.

Zukowski and Ziegelmeyer said that archeologists requested that the rock be submitted for further laboratory analysis, in what they describe as phase two of their investigation.

One anthropologist reportedly described the rock as being similar to a "lodestone." Lodestones have been mentioned in literature for centuries as having magical and mystical properties. There are ancient accounts of people reporting that when holding lodestones, their hands and body shook, and that the stones cured a wide range of illnesses, including snake bites and headaches. Native Americans reportedly used lodestones as protection against snakes.

Meanwhile, investigators claim the artifact mirrors crop circles that appeared in Liddleton, England, in 1996, indicating a possibility the stone bears a message from space.

Priscilla Wolf, of Tijeras, a native American woman known to have "powers," visited the site were the rock was found last weekend, and said she felt a vibration in her hands when she held the rock, and that "light came down from the skies" when the rock was deposited at the site. [Deposited by whom? And when? Didn't Ms. Wolf's "powers" give her any clues to that important information???]

Although the rock was found partially exposed on the surface, Zukowski said, the sandy area in which it was found is known to erode and shift, possibly uncovering the rock."It appeared to have been buried at one time," said Ridge, who believes the rock represents more than just an interesting object.

"After I had it a few months, I began to think about it and began to think that it may be a beacon of some kind, or a message," he said. "And I believe the message is that if we don't learn to get along with each other, we will be destroyed," he said.
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Well, I don't know about any message - secret or otherwise - from outer space aliens. That's not my thing, darlings! This is the description from the article of the carving on the stone:

"with what appears to be moon phases, a solar eclipse and the depiction of a supernova."

Yes, the dark carved circle might be the moon and the crescent probably does represent the moon. But where are the solar eclipse and the supernova? Somebody, give me a road map!

This is what I see when I look at the stone - keeping in mind this is TINY - only 2 inches across: A yin/yang pattern; a sun (full circle), moon (crescent) and a square, which in Chinese iconography represents the earth, and may also represent a "field" (square of land). Also, the stone is not "oval" as the article said - it's a triangle with rounded edges. Overall I'd say the iconography is Chinese. My guess is that it's a personal talisman, not something meant as a "message" from anyone to anyone!

There is, of course, no way of knowing how old the stone is. But if it only dates back to the infamous alien spaceship craft at Roswell back in 1947, it's not ancient at all. For all we know, it could have been planted by the perpetrators of the 1996 Liddington crop circle, or someone who admired the creators of that crop circle, just to hoax things up a bit.

And what are the chances that this could actually be a Chinese artifact? Except for a few voices crying out in the wilderness, the "accepted science" doesn't even have Chinese explorers on the radar, and certainly not exploring in New Mexico at ANY time!

Call me crazy, but that's what caught my attention about this Roswell rock - the Chinese angle.

More on the Phaistos Disc

From The Daily Grail.com: Posted July 15th, 2008 by Greg Phaistos Disc a ... Phake?!... The provenance of one of archaeology's most mysterious artifacts, the 'Phaistos Disc', has been called into question by Jerome Eisenberg, a specialist in faked ancient art. Eisenberg believes that Italian archaeologist Luigi Pernier may have created the Phaistos Disc, and planted it at the palace of Phaistos in Crete, in order to outdo the discoveries of contemporary, English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans: Dr Eisenberg, who has conducted appraisals for the US Treasury Department and the J. Paul Getty Museum, highlighted the forger's error in creating a terracotta “pancake” with a cleanly cut edge. Nor, he added, should it have been fired so perfectly. “Minoan clay tablets were not fired purposefully, only accidentally,” he said. “Pernier may not have realised this.” The Greek authorities have refused to give Dr Eisenberg permission to examine the disc outside its display case, arguing that it is too delicate to be moved. His misgivings could be laid to rest by a thermoluminescence test — a standard scientific dating test — but the authorities had refused, he said. One of the key mysteries surrounding the disc is the spiral of stamped symbols upon it; no-one has successfully identified or decoded their meaning. Under Eisenberg's theory, there would be a good reason for that - they are meaningless. Defenders of the Phaistos Disc have brought up the Arkalochori Axe - which features some characters similar to the Phaistos Disc - as a possible hitch in Eisenberg's hoax claim. Eisenberg's findings are published in the July-August edition of the archaeological journal Minerva.

Water Wars!

Oh, this is just too precious to pass up posting. From that BASTION of Truth, Justice, and the former SOVIET (now RUSSIAN) Way. What's the opposite of the movie "Water World?" Yikes! Mankind to wage wars for water by 2025 15.07.2008 [What - 2025? Come on, darlings! We'll be whacking off each other's heads and swiping out each other's eyeballs for the fluid by 2015, if not before...] The shortage of fresh water on planet Earth is likely to become the biggest problem ever during the forthcoming decades. Experts from the International Water Management Institute said in their recent report that the water crisis in the world would occur because of the growing number of population. According to the UN, the population of planet Earth will grow from 6 to 8.5 billion people by 2030. One person living in an industrially developed country consumes up to 3,000 liters of water a year. If the global population grows by 2.5 billion, it will be necessary to find additional 2,000 cubic kilometers of water for their living. “The global consumption of water has increased six times during the recent 100 years and will double by 2050. There are countries that have already run out of water reserves for the production of their food. The shortage of fresh water will inevitably boost prices on this resource,” the Director of the International Water Management Institute, Frank Rijsberman said. The accelerating urbanization and the rising living standard will set forth new requirements to the quality of water. Drinking water and industrial water is obtained from one and the same sources. It may just so happen that agricultural producers, for example, will face serious problems with the required volumes of water. Mankind will have to deal with a serious shortage of water in 25 years. Earth’s fresh water reserves will not be enough to feed the growing population of the planet. Specialists say that one should take urgent measures now to solve the water problem. The list of measures includes the construction of water reservoirs, the use of rain water for irrigation of fields and gardens, etc. It is not the first time when futurologists raise the water crisis subject. They believe that the crisis may occur even before the planet runs out of its fresh water. The shortage of water can be accompanied with large-scale military conflicts. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon raised the subject in December 2007 at the first Asian-Pacific Water Forum, which took place in Japan. Ban Ki-moon said that one-third of Earth’s population lives in the areas, which already suffer from the lack of water. More importantly, about 1.1 billion people living on the planet nowadays do not have access to fresh water which poses no health risks. Humans still pollute water sources irresponsibly and do not seem to care about the consequences. Rest of article.

"Aryan" Race Fight Continues in India

I've been reading about this endless fight for years. Here's more fuel to add to the fire: From SahilOnline.com (Reflection of the Truth) [Hmmm....] Aryan race did not exist, claims Suryanath Kamath S.O. News service, Monday, 14 July 2008: Bangalore: “Indus Valley civilisation and Vedic civilisation are not two different civilisations but the former was only an urbanised version of the latter,” historian Suryanath U. Kamath said here on Sunday. Dr. Kamath, former Director of Karnataka State Gazetteer, was speaking on “Ancient India: Overseas Connections” organised as a part of Mythic Society's centenary year celebrations. Refuting the existence of Aryan race or an invasion by them, he said: “The Vedas speak of a war between light and darkness which was wrongly interpreted by European scholars as a war between light-skinned and dark-skinned people. The term Dravida means 'inhabitants of Tamil Nadu' and not a race, and the term Aryan means 'noble'.” On the Indus Valley civilisation, he said: “There are factual evidences of a river that ran parallel to the west of the Sindhu and this was home to the Vedic civilisation but [river] dried up around 1900 BC which brought an end to the civilisation.” Dr. Kamat spoke extensively about the Indian trade connections with Persia and Rome during the Indus Valley civilisation. “There is a Roman settlement in Puducherry, established for commercial activities around 2,000 years ago. Romans had a penchant for Indian perfumes, diamonds and garments and in return, there was a constant flow of gold into India,” Dr. Kamat said. [Yes - but 2000 years old is a far cry from 4000 years old - the point is - what, exactly? Does a pattern of later trade across a wide area presuppose that the same was true 2000 years before? This may very well be the case, but it certainly isn't stated in the article and cannot be implied from what IS stated there]. He said: “Indian seamen had knowledge of sea routes much before the Western sailors could have, and [they] were also well versed in ship building as we can find description of ships in the Rig Veda. “This is proved by the fact that various artefacts of Harappan civilisation were found in countries as far as Rome and Mexico,” Dr. Kamat said. [No evidence cited to support artifacts in Mexico and Rome; Rome, I can believe but Mexico? When and where?] Dr. Kamat said that the Indian connection with foreign lands was not just limited to trade but also extended to culture. “South-East Asian countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines are largely influenced by Indian culture and we can see such influence in Buddhist Stupas and Hindu temples in these countries,” Dr. Kamath said. [Harappan civilisation existed, according to conventional dating, from about 2600 BCE to about 1900 BCE, and collapsed on itself for reasons that are still in dispute; those people went - somewhere, they didn't all just die off, there's no evidence for massive deaths and burials of the remains as far as I'm aware. That suggests that the surviving Indus/Harrapans migrated out of the areas where the rivers dried up. However, what is the relative timing of the civilizations in these neighboring countries? And does the author mean to imply that those civilizations are a direct result of a supposed mass exodus from a collapsed Indus/Harrapan civilizations?] *********************************************************************************** If you think race relations in the United States are a sticky wicket, you should spend some time reading about race relations in India under the guise of this "Aryan invasion" stuff. As far as I am aware, generally speaking, lighter skinned peoples populated and continue to populate the northern part of the Indian continent; darker skinned peoples populated and continue to populate the southern part of India. And never the twain shall meet...

My Ancestors Were Cave Men. Well, Duh!

According to present scientific opinion, we're all descended from apes that once "evolved" (I have yet to read an explanation of just how or from what, precisely, we evolved, unless they're still teaching we're descended from amoebas - like they said way back in high school, lol!) who lived in Africa, and those apes slowly walked out of Africa on all fours and spread across the world in "waves." The questions surrounding "genetic anomolies" that crop up every now and then in the archaeological record are dismissed or, if they are addressed at all, are belittled as "bad science." Those African apes who came "out of Africa in waves" became modern man - except for all the lines that died out, and except for "Neanderthal Man" that the African apes killed off, evidently, during the last "wave" of migration out of Africa, starting some 60,000 years ago. Where did so-called "Neanderthal Man" come from? What happened to the period of time between 60,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago, when so-called "Cro-Magnon Man" first appeared on the scene? How did African apes become Cro-Magnon? For that matter, how did Cro-Magnon become Homo Sapiens-Sapiens, so called "modern" man? How was the "kill off" of "Neanderthal Man" accomplished? NOBODY KNOWS... Well, I don't buy the current orthodoxy for an instant. Never have, never will. At present, our research into DNA, particularly with respect to our human antecedents, is in its infancy. There are just too many unanswered questions, too many uncertainties, too many variables, and to much uncertain science still in its primitive stages, to accept SCIENCE'S time line on "human evolution." Talk to me 100 years from now - only you won't be able to unless you can resurrent the dead because 100 years from now I'll be long gone! Damn! I found this article interesting because it traces some "cave" ancestors back to about 1000 BCE in this specific area. It doesn't purport to go back to 1,000,000 BCE, 100,000 BCE or even 10,000 BCE; it doesn't purport to go back to the original "Eve" and "Adam." Smart move, researchers. I don't know why it became fashionable to equate living in a cave with being backward or something less than fully human (as that term is accepted today; sometimes I wonder if we aren't de-evolutionizing? Is that a word? You know what I mean - some modern humans are going backwards!) At the time, it may have been by far the smartest thing to live in a cave. Modern man, we are such know-it-all, judgmental jerks! From The Times July 15, 2008 Cavemen and their relatives in the same village after 3,000 years Roger Boyes in Berlin The good news for two villagers in the Söse valley of Germany yesterday was that they have discovered their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents — give or take a generation or two. The bad news is that their long-lost ancestors may have grilled and eaten other members of their clan. [No evidence whatsoever was presented for this teaser throw-away comment in the article]. Every family has its skeletons in the cave, though, so Manfred Hucht-hausen, 58, a teacher, and 48-year-old surveyor Uwe Lange remained in celebratory mood. Thanks to DNA testing of remarkably well-preserved Bronze Age bones, they can claim to have the longest proven family tree in the world. “I can trace my family back by name to 1550,” Mr Lange said. “Now I can go back 120 generations.” Mr Lange comes from the village of Nienstedt, in Lower Saxony, in the foothills of the Harz mountain range. “We used to play in these caves as kids. If I’d known that there were 3,000-year-old relatives buried there I wouldn’t have set foot in the place.” The cave, the Lichtensteinhöhle [LOL! Aptly named!], is made up of five interlocked natural chambers. It stayed hidden from view until 1980 and was not researched properly until 1993. The archaeologist Stefan Flindt found 40 skeletons along with what appeared to be cult objects. It was a mystery: Bronze Age man was usually buried in a field. Different theories were considered. Perhaps some of the bodies had been offered as human sacrifice, or one generation had been eaten by another. [Yeah, right. What about an ancestral burial ground, nimnuts???] Scientists at the University of Göttingen found that the bones had been protected by a thick layer of calcium: water dripping through the roof of the limestone cave had helped to create a sheath around the skeletons. The analysis showed that all the bones were from the same family and the scientists speculated that it was a living area and a ceremonial burial place. About 300 locals agreed to giving saliva swabs. Two of the cave family had a very rare genetic pattern – and a match was found. The skulls have been reconstructed using three-dimensional computer techniques and placed in a museum. “It was really strange to look the man deep in the eyes,” Mr Lange said. The bones of history — The oldest human genetic material is thought to have been discovered at the Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg in 2001 — Fossilised faeces found in Oregon this year contained DNA dating back 14,000 years, placing people genetically similar to Native Americans in the area 1,000 years earlier than previously thought [Actually, there is evidence scattered all across the United States, from west coast to east coast, of habitation dating back to as far back as perhaps 50,000 years ago] — Australian scientists announced in 2001 that they had extracted DNA from the country’s oldest human skeleton, 60,000-year-old Mungo Man, who is distinct from the line that previously suggested all modern humans traced back to Africa [You won't read about Mungo Man in scientific journals; he's too "inconvenient" - doesn't fit into the established and accepted "norm."] Source: Times archives ********************************************************************************** Added as a postscript: Just how wrong is the conventional chronology? LOL! I found this quote staring me in the face right after I posted the above, and visited The Daily Grail.com. I just love it when a plan comes together...

Goddesschess Update

Random Round-up has been updated. Since the core group of Goddesschess is going to be on vacation starting July 18th for 2 weeks, there will be no RR updates. I'll blog as I can. In addition to the usual RR miscellany of interesting items, we've added two articles of note to our Chessquest section: The Sacred Bone by Brian Stross pdf file 3.1 M instant download While Goddesschess is on vacation during the next two weeks, this article oughta hold ya! Formally titled "The Mesoamerican Sacrum Bone; Doorway to the Other World", here you will find 54 pages of excellent research on the subject of dice and related traditions. Thanks Brian! See also: html link - a good portal but lacking important graphic content. (July 13, 2008) The Sacred Game by J.C. Hallman Goddesschess "enthusiastically" presents this informed thoughtspiece from the pen of J.C. Hallman. (July 6. 2008)

India's D'Souza Sisters

From Mangalorean.com

D'Souza sisters to represent State in U-13 chess tourney

(Image: Andrea D'Souza right, Vanessa D'Souza left)

Mangalore July 14, 2008:

The student of Derik's Chess School(DCS) Vanessa D'souza has won the State Under 13 girls Chess Championship organised by Belgaum District Chess Association Under the auspices of United Karnataka Chess Association from 11th to 13 th July 2008 at Belgaum.

Vanessa D'souza scored 5 points in 6 rounds to bag the honour. In the scintillating final round she won against her younger sister Andrea D'souza to secure first place. Andrea D'souza also scored 5 points in 6 rounds and was placed Runner Up. The result of their direct encounter helped Vanessa to clinch title, though Andrea was ahead in progressive score.

Both the sisters will represent Karnataka in the forthcoming National Under 13 Chess Championship. These young prodigies are the daughters of Victor D'souza and Avith D'souza and are studying in St Agnes english Medium School, Mangalore.

Egyptian Antiquites on Display

I may have already posted about this - but I just love this sculpture so much I'm posting it again! When I first saw it, I thought "cycladic art." But it's Egyptian - Naqada II! Very old and reflective of the world-wide "bird goddess" and "mother goddess" imagery that can also be found in European artifacts of the same age. (Image: Female Figurine Predynastic Period, Naqada II Period, about 3650 B.C. - 3300 B.C. Terracotta, painted 13 3/8 x 5 x 2 1/2 in. (34 x 12.7 x 6.4 cm) place excavated: Burial no. 2, El Ma'mariya, Egypt, Africa. Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund.)

From ArtDaily.org

Mystery of Ancient Egyptian Funerary and Afterlife Revealed at Indianapolis Museum of Art

July 13, 2008

INDIANAPOLIS.- The Indianapolis Museum of Art will be the first venue to host To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum, which will be on view July 13 – September 7, 2008. Featuring approximately 120 objects dating from 3600 B.C. to 400 A.D. from the world-renowned Egyptian art collection of New York’s Brooklyn Museum, the exhibition will illustrate the range of strategies and preparations the ancient Egyptians developed to defeat death and to achieve success in the afterlife.

“The IMA is pleased to be the first museum in a multiple-city tour for this exhibition,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, the Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO of the IMA. “Through a vibrant selection of artworks from one of the world’s leading collections of Egyptian antiquities, our visitors will gain real insight into the ancient quest for survival into eternity.”

The exhibition explores the belief that death was an enemy that could be vanquished, one of the primary cultural tenets of ancient Egyptian civilization. In order to survive in the next world, Egyptians would purchase, trade, or even reuse a variety of objects—statues, coffins, vessels, and jewelry for example—that would protect them in the afterlife. The exhibition explains the process of mummification, the economics and rituals of memorials, the contents of the tomb, the funeral accessories—including the differentiation of objects used by upper, middle, and lower classes—and the idealized afterlife.”

Exhibition highlights include:

 a vividly painted coffin of a Mayor of Thebes (about 1075-945 B.C)

 the mummy and portrait of Demetrios, a wealthy citizen of Hawara (95-100 A.D.)

 two mummies of dogs (664 B.C.-395 A.D)

 stone sculpture and statues

 protective gold jewelry made for nobility

 amulets (items for protection in the afterlife)

 canopic jars (used to store the body’s major organs)

 ceramic vessels

“Many of the objects in the show have never been exhibited before,” said Theodore Celenko, curator of African art at the IMA. “And one piece in particular—a limestone statue of a father, mother and child that’s more than 2,000 years old—will only be shown in Indianapolis.”

In addition to the exhibition, the IMA will host a lecture by the exhibition’s curator Edward Bleiberg. On Sunday, July 13 at 2 p.m., Bleiberg—the curator of Egyptian, Classical, and Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the Brooklyn Museum—will discuss religion, aesthetics and immortality of ancient Egypt in relation to the exhibition.

More on the Imbalance of Men and Women in China

Dark clouds on the horizon in China. What does that mean for us? Excerpted from No Country for Young Men China's testosterone problem. Mara Hvistendahl, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 [The] macho violence spurting forth through outlets like war games is a growing trend in Chinese society--and China's one-child policy, in effect since 1979, is partly responsible. The country's three decades of iron-fisted population planning coincided with a binge in sex-selective abortions (Chinese traditionally favor sons, who carry on the family line) and a rise, even as the country developed, in female infant mortality. After almost 30 years of the policy, China now has the largest gender imbalance in the world, with 37 million more men than women and almost 20 percent more newborn boys than girls nationwide. By the time these newborns reach puberty, war games may seem like a quaint relic. In the 2020s, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences researcher Zheng Zhenzhen, estimates in a People's Daily interview that 10 percent of Chinese men will be unable to find wives, which could have a huge impact on Chinese society. Historian David Courtwright suggests in Violent Land that sexually segregated societies in the United States--frontier towns flush with unmarried men, immigrant ghettos in early twentieth-century cities, mining camps--are behind our propensity toward violence. The immigrants and westward migrants who shaped early America, Courtwright says, were largely young single men, who are-- today as well as then--disproportionately responsible for drug abuse, looting, vandalism, and violent crime. A long-term study of Vietnam veterans in 1998 may explain exactly why: The subjects' testosterone levels, which are linked to aggression and violence, dropped when they married and increased when they divorced. Eternally single men, by extension, maintain high levels of testosterone--a recipe for violent civil unrest. The one-child policy was instituted in an attempt to hamper the wild growth of the Chinese population. But, in the process of plugging one hole, the government may have left another open. The coming boom in restless young men promises to overhaul Chinese society in some potentially scary ways. Lianyungang, a booming port city in a Jiangsu province economic belt, is ground zero for some of these changes. According to the China Family Planning Association, it's the city in China with the most extreme gender ratio for children under four--163 boys for every 100 girls. One sunny Saturday morning at verdant Cangwu Park, I count six boys and three girls bouncing on the inflatable castle. Near the ice-cream stand are a dozen sticky-faced kids, seven boys and five girls, feeding pigeons. The children running after kites adorned with Olympics mascots and China's Shenzhou VII spaceship: three and two. The drivers of the cheerful little tanks circling an electric track: three and one. These numbers work fine on the playground, but, for China's many match- making services, they may prove troublesome. At the Good Luck Marriage Introduction Agency, in a town a few hours' drive west from Liangyungang, two whiteboards mounted on the wall advertise the age, height, and income of available singles. On the day I visit, founder Tao Hui, a fortysomething woman with a bouffant, is watching soap operas in her sweatpants. She hasn't felt the shortage yet, she says. On the whiteboards, a few dozen nameless men line up nicely to a few dozen nameless women. For now, many in the early wave of surplus men are marrying younger women. "We'll see real problems in eight or ten years," Tao predicts. Her 17-year- old son, she assures me, has good prospects. But she already turns away a lot of single males from outlying villages with no money or education. "If they're ugly and can't find work, there's nothing I can do. No one wants them." Preliminary returns from the first generation of population-controlled kids suggest how all those unwanted men might fill up their time. Over the past decade, as the boys hit adolescence, the country's youth crime rate more than doubled. In December, Chinese Society of Juvenile Delinquency Research Deputy Secretary General Liu Guiming told a Beijing seminar that today's teens were committing crimes "without specific motives, often without forethought." The Chinese government--which, policy-making blunders aside, hardly wants a population of hopeless, volatile men under its rule--has been vainly trying to undo the damage. At a symposium on the policy last August, family-planning commission head Zhang Weiqing said the gender ratio harbors a "hidden threat to social stability." In February, officials publicly debated the timeline for phasing out stringent population planning targets, citing the gender ratio along with a rapidly aging population. "In the past, everyone thought we didn't have a problem," says Gu Baochang, a demographer at Renmin University in Beijing. "Now they're starting to pay attention." In the meantime, the government is adopting a softer tone in its propaganda. The red characters painted on village walls throughout the countryside have evolved from the 1980s slogan YOU BEAT IT OUT! YOU CAN MAKE IT FALL OUT! YOU CAN ABORT IT! BUT YOU CANNOT GIVE BIRTH TO IT! Now they read: IMPLEMENT FAMILY PLANNING FOR THE GOOD OF ALL CITIZENS. And, recently, the government added BOYS AND GIRLS ARE BOTH TREASURES. In 2003, it unveiled the Care For Girls program, which gives stipends to parents of girls in some provinces. But, as Chinese couples make more money, fertility is naturally declining-- meaning that today's bachelors will form an even larger proportion of China's future population than officials expect. Wang Feng, a sociologist at the University of California-Irvine who's part of a group of scholars advocating phasing out the one-child policy, says the outlook is grim: "Each successive birth cohort is going to be smaller. When younger cohorts get smaller, you have fewer females. It's a double whammy." **************************************************************************************** Article on the same subject, but not about China, it's about declining birth rates in many countries in the rest of the world: From Reason On Line Baby Bust! The world is panicking over birthrates. Again. Kerry Howley July 2008 Print Edition Worth reading if only for the fascinating demographic information it contains. Bottom line - the WOMB controls the world - and don't you guys ever forget it!

Amsterdam 2001 Part 2

Hola darlings! It's an absolutely gorgeous day today - there's a strong breeze (about 25 mph), the air is DRY and I feel totally energized. The grass out back has been cut, articles have been read, critters have been fed. While doing some housecleaning today in preparation to receive my guests (dondelion will be here on Friday and Isis and Michelle arrive a week from Tuesday) I came across some old photographs from my 1999 trip to the FIDE World Chess Championship in Las Vegas. I will scan and post some of them. That reminded me of our 2001 trip to Amsterdam, and that I did not finish my "travelogue." So - here goes: While the Initiative Group Koenigstein symposium at the Max Euwe Centrum ran only three days, from November 30 - December 2, 2001, we were in town a few days afterward to take in some of Amsterdam's sights. I'm an early riser. Sunday December 2nd dawned with a watery sunlight - the first I'd seen since our arrival in Amsterdam! I quickly got dressed, grabbed a hard-boiled egg and some bread and butter from the empty common room and headed out before 8 a.m. The city was deserted - the streets were wet; it was humid, the air was soggy, but the sunlight cast the buildings in a manner that took my breath away and I took a leisurely stroll in the area around the Hotel Schmitt, ending up at the Rijksmuseum. I took several photographs during my stroll, but my camera was cheap and old and the photographs were disappointing. This was in the days before digital cameras turning every shot into a winning shot! I got back to the hotel shortly after 9 to a full common room, everyone was eating breakfast (it was included in the cost of our accomodations). Several of us walked to the Max Euwe Centrum for the final half day of the IGK Symposium. It ended with a discussion I knew would never amount to anything - the writing and compiling of a "new" and improved history of chess (actually, more about the origins of chess and the games from which it may have been derived, which is what we at Goddesschess are most interested in). I left early. Unfortunately, by doing so I missed out on an impromptu lunch afterward with The Chief (Ricardo Calvo), Carmen (his wife and faithful Librarian and research assistant), Ken Whyld and others. They and Gerhard Josten, our German acquaintance who had been instrumental in introducing us to The Chief, were all leaving on afternoon trains to go back home. Later that afternoon dondelion, Isis, Michelle and I trekked over to the Rijksmuseum and spent hours oohing and aahing at the incredible collection of art. I know I've got some photographs from that day other than those I've already posted (in the left hand margin of the blog), I'll see if I can dig them out, scan and post them. Now the couch is calling - I need a nap...

Is the Phaistos Disk a Fake???

Whoa! The Phaistos Disk a fake?

From The Timesonline
July 12, 2008
Phaistos Disc declared as fake by scholar
Greek authorities will not allow the disc to be examined outside its case to not show enlarge option
Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent

Some say that its 45 mysterious symbols are the words of a 4,000-year-old poem, or perhaps a sacred text. Others contest that they are a magical inscription, a piece of ancient music or the world's oldest example of punctuation.

But now an American scholar believes that the markings on the Phaistos Disc, one of archaeology's most famous unsolved mysteries, mean nothing at all — because the disc is a hoax.

Jerome Eisenberg, a specialist in faked ancient art, is claiming that the disc and its indecipherable text is not a relic dating from 1,700BC, but a forgery that has duped scholars since Luigi Pernier, an Italian archaeologist, “discovered” it in 1908 in the Minoan palace of Phaistos on Crete.

Pernier was desperate to impress his colleagues with a find of his own, according to Dr Eisenberg, and needed to unearth something that could outdo the discoveries made by Sir Arthur Evans, the renowned English archaeologist, and Federico Halbherr, a fellow Italian.

He believes that Pernier's solution was to create a “relic” with an untranslatable pictographic text. If it was a ruse, it worked. Evans was so excited that he published an analysis of Pernier's findings. For the past century innumerable attempts have been made to decipher the disc. Archaeologists have tried linking them to ancient civilisations, from Greek to Egyptian.

Dr Eisenberg, who has conducted appraisals for the US Treasury Department and the J. Paul Getty Museum, highlighted the forger's error in creating a terracotta “pancake” with a cleanly cut edge. Nor, he added, should it have been fired so perfectly. “Minoan clay tablets were not fired purposefully, only accidentally,” he said. “Pernier may not have realised this.”

Each side of the disc bears a bar composed of four or five dots which one scholar described as “the oldest example of the use of natural punctuation”.

Dr Eisenberg believes that it was added to lead scholars astray — “another oddity to puzzle them, and a common trick among forgers”. The Greek authorities have refused to give Dr Eisenberg permission to examine the disc outside its display case, arguing that it is too delicate to be moved.

His misgivings could be laid to rest by a thermoluminescence test — a standard scientific dating test — but the authorities had refused, he said. In Rome, this test cast doubt recently on the provenance of another iconic archeological object.

Experts are now contending that the Capitoline Wolf, the famous bronze sculpture of a she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, founders of the city of Rome, dates from the Middle Ages, and not Etruscan times, as long has been held.

The Capitoline Museum's website says that the statue, known as Lupa, or she-wolf, is from the 5th century BC and was donated to the museum in 1471 by Pope Sixtus IV.

However, in a front-page article this week in the Rome daily a Repubblica, Adriano La Regina, who for decades headed the national archaeological office for Rome, suggested that the museum was reluctant to release test results indicating that the bronze was medieval.

“The new information about the epoch of the Capitoline bronze has been held back for about a year now,” La Regina wrote. He added that the tests had produced a “very precise indication in the 13th century”.

The 30in (75cm) bronze is the centrepiece of a museum room named after it, and postcards and T-shirts with its image are popular Rome souvenirs.

Claudio Parisi Presicce, the museum's director, insisted that his institution was not trying to hide data that could subtract centuries from the she-wolf's antiquity, saying that the data “aren't definitive yet”.

Supporting Local Chess: Announcements

From the ContraCostaTimes.com Albany, California: Summer Board Game Days — 1-4 p.m. July 16. Drop-in fun for all ages. Games include Monopoly, checkers, Mankala, chess, and more. Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Free. 510-526-3720, Ext. 17.

From Ohio.com Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio: First United Methodist Church — 245 Portage Trail, Cuyahoga Falls. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday. Chess Camp for first-graders through sixth-graders. $100. 330-923-5241, Ext. 219.

India's Ivana Furtado to Play at Asian Youth Chess Championship

From the Navhind Times Sunday July 13, 2008 Ivana for Tehran, Singapore NT NETWORK PANAJI - Dempo Goodwill Ambassador, Ivana Maria Furtado, double world and Asian Under-8 chess champion will leave for Iran on Monday to represent India at Asian youth chess championship to be held in Tehran from July 15-22. Ivana is the current Under-8 title holder having also won the silver and the bronze in 2006 and 2005 respectively at the same championship. After her event in Teheran, Ivana will proceed to Singapore for the 4th world chess under-9 girls championship from July 23-31. By virtue of being the Under-9 Asian schools chess champion, Ivana has earned the right to participate in the event. Ivana will be accompanied by her coach, Dronacharya awardee Raghunandan Gokhale at both places. Meanwhile, Ivana and her parents Jennifer and Eli, have expressed their deep gratitude to Mr Shrinivas V Dempo, chairman and managing director of Dempo Group of Companies for the magnanimous gesture in naming her as the 2nd Dempo Goodwill Ambassador which will support her participation and coaching at higher level so that she can achieve her dream, they stated. They pointed out that this was the first of its kind and magnitude.

Nigeria Runs Tournament to Select Olympiad Players

Going the way of the Phillipines, the Nigerian Chess Federation has invited 60 women and men chessplayers to participate in an event to decide who will represent the country at the upcoming Chess Olympiad to be held in Dresden, Germany starting in November. By following this route, the NCF is making players prove they are in top form and the best in the country.

Friday Night Miscellany

It's hot, it's steamy, and more thunderstorms are on the way. We got between 2 to 4 inches of rain last night into this morning; it kept coming in waves and didn't stop until about 8:00 a.m., as I was half-way into the office on the bus. Unfortunately, I was already soggy by the time I got to the bus stop, as it was pouring rain during my 3/4 mile walk from hearth to bus! And I was groggy on top of it because, as if the first wave of storms wasn't bad enough (hit around 7 p.m.), the second wave that hit around 2 a.m. kept me up for the rest of the night. Oh well.

Amazingly, I could not find a report on how much rain, exactly, we got overnight - it's as if it is a big dark secret. Come on - rivers are still overflowing their banks here and I heard this morning on the news that most of them won't be back to "normal" until November! We've already had over 33 inches of rain for 2008! As I understand it, our "normal" average is about 30 inches a year! On the plus side, my rain gutters had a much-needed cleaning and even with the strong storms (lots of thunder and even more lightning, goddess, I hate lightning) last night, as far as I could tell there was no Niagra Falls on the deck out back from a clogged overhead rain gutter! One must be thankful for small blessings.

Some things to ponder:

Here's a story for all those who still deny that "global warming" (or whatever the hell you want to call what is going on with our dramatic climatic changes) - is real! Ha! Ask the people who lost their houses in the June floods whether climate change is real or not. Ask the farmers here with flooded-out fields and no signs of any relief soon. By the way, more severe storms and rain (lots of rain) are expected tonight. Then we get a break, supposedly starting tomorrow at noon when the latest "front" blows out of here toward the east - until Wednesday, when three more days of non-stop severe storms are forecast. Nah, there's no such thing as climate change...

Antarctic Ice Shelf All But Lost: A vast shelf of ice in Antarctica is hanging on to the continent by a thread and is not expected to survive, scientists announced today.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf is experiencing further disintegration that could collapse an ice bridge connecting the shelf to Charcot Island. Since the connection to the island helps to stabilize the ice shelf, it is likely the breakup of the bridge will put the remainder of the ice shelf at risk, the researchers said.

The disintegration is evident in images from the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.

Full article. Click on the graphic and get an enlarged version, which clearly shows the deterioration of the ice shelf and the new "crack" that has opened up in the lower most area of the image. If that "crack" spreads, the entire ice bridge will probably split off and wash out to sea.

What is most amazing about all of this is that it is full winter in Antarctica right now, so the ice should not frigging be melting!


Love this story: People want to build a poop-processing plant in San Francisco and name it after our dear Prez, George W. Bush. How utterly and completely apt, for a President who is full of sh*t! Naturally, the local Republican Party thinks the idea "stinks." Har!


This one may awaken your binge and purge reflex: Over caviar and sea urchin (hey, I couldn't make this up) G8 leaders pig out over gourmet foods while discussing global food crisis. By the way, dig the photo of the "wives." The chick in the blue dress really looks like she'd rather be anywhere else, even Hell, maybe. Who's she married to? The hot chick in the black "slip" dress - lifting up her skirt and showing a little knee. Geez. She has to be the French wife. And what the hell is Laura Bush wearing a pants suit for? Ahhhh, I think I've got it, by jove! She's part of the Secret Hillary Sisterhood and wearing a pants suit is a sign of solidarity. Has anyone checked her checking account to see if she contributed to pay down Hillary's campaign debt???


From the Tee Hee Hee Department: He has to be a secret Republican with that "let 'em eat cake" attitude! Representative Charles B. Rangel on Friday angrily defended the unusual housing bargain he has been granted by a major real estate developer, saying that he did not believe he was being allowed four rent-stabilized apartments because of his status as a congressman.

Responding to an article in Friday’s New York Times, Mr. Rangel said there was nothing illegal or unethical about his relationship with the Olnick Organization, his landlord at the Lenox Terrace complex in Harlem. He also said that he did not believe it was unfair to avail himself of the multiple rent-stabilized apartments at a time of soaring rents in Manhattan and evictions of many rent-regulated tenants.

. . . Mr. Rangel, a towering figure in New York City politics and chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, paid a total rent of $3,894 a month for his four units in 2007, according to state records obtained by The New York Times. The Olnick Organization’s Web site now advertises similar apartments in Mr. Rangel’s building at a combined market rent of $7,465 to $8,125 a month.


Ohmygoddess! The absolutely frigging BARBARIANS! In honor of the Olympics, the Chinese are taking DOG off Bejing menus, in a futile effort to avoid offending the sensibilities of western visitors. Please, don't get me started... China: 1.1 billion and growing chowing down on man's best friend and loving it. I would suggest everyone avoid all Chinese McDonalds, where the meaning of "two all beef patties..." may have unique significance. No doubt they're looking at America even as I write this, salivating at all our beloved, pampered overweight canine buddies...

Iranians LIED About How Many Missiles Launched

Oh, this is just too hiliarious! Wait until you read some of the comments from the New York Time's "Lede" blog! The Revolutionary Guard faked a photo of yesterday's missile launch, adding a missile. To paraphrase one comment: "Thus evidently making the launch 33 1/3% scarier!" LOL! (First photo, released by Sepah News on 07/09/08; second phot, released by Sepah News on 07/10/08).

July 10, 2008, 9:16 am
In an Iranian Image, a Missile Too Many
By Mike Nizza and Patrick Witty

As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a point that had not emerged before the photo was used on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.

. . . .

Does Iran’s state media use Photoshop? The charge has been leveled before. So far, though, it can’t be said with any certainty whether there is any official Iranian involvement in this instance. Sepah apparently published the three-missile version of the image today without further explanation. [Well, DUH!]

Oops! Ancient Italian Statue Not So Ancient!

Call me naughty, but I had a laugh when I read this article. Italy, oh hapless, disorganized, chaotic Italy. LOL! From BBC News Online Famed Roman statue 'not ancient' July 10, 2008 A statue symbolising the mythical origins and power of Rome, long thought to have been made around 500BC, has been found to date from the 1200s. The statue depicts a she-wolf suckling Remus and his twin brother Romulus - who is said to have founded Rome. The statue of the wolf was carbon-dated last year, but the test results have only now been made public. The figures of Romulus and Remus have already been shown to be 15th Century additions to the statue. In a front page article in the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, Rome's former top heritage official, Professor Adriano La Regina, said about 20 tests were carried out on the she-wolf at the University of Salerno. He said the results of the tests gave a very precise indication that the statue was manufactured in the 13th Century. Damaged paw Academics having been arguing about the origins of the statue - known as the Lupa Capitolina - since the 18th Century. Until recently it was widely acknowledged that the statue was an Etruscan work dating from the 5th Century BC. The Roman statesman, Cicero, who lived in the 1st Century BC, describes a statue of a she-wolf that was damaged by a lightning strike - the Lupa Capitolina has a damaged paw. However, in 2006, an Italian art historian and restorer, Anna Maria Carruba, argued that the statue had been cast in a single piece using a wax mould - a technique unknown in the ancient world. She suggested the damage to the Lupa Capitolina's paw was the result of a mistake in the moulding process. The statue is among the most important works on display at the Capitoline museums in Rome. The Lupa Capitolina is the emblem of the Serie A football club, Roma, and was the symbol used for the 1960 Rome Olympics.

Archaeology and War

Are they right? Archaeologists to refuse help over possible Iran strike 10 July 2008 NewScientist.com news service PERSEPOLIS, once the capital of the Persian empire, and the massive mud-brick Bam citadel are among the nine listed World Heritage Sites in Iran. Yet leading archaeologists are urging colleagues to refuse any military requests to draw up a list of Iranian sites that should be exempted from air strikes. "Such advice would provide cultural credibility and respectability to the military action," said a resolution agreed by the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, Ireland, last week. Instead, delegates were advised to emphasise the harm that any military action would do to Iran's people and heritage. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, bombing damaged important monuments, including the Al-Zohur Palace in Baghdad, and museums and archaeological sites were later looted - even though archaeologists had been consulted in advance. "If these archaeologists had little impact in terms of saving even the few selected archaeological sites listed, what did they achieve?" asks Yannis Hamilakis of the University of Southampton, UK. From issue 2664 of New Scientist magazine, 10 July 2008, page 6

Supporting Local Chess: Chili, NY Library Tournament

From the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.com (love the name!) - out of Rochester, NY, part of the Gannett News Network. Chili library chess tourney ends in playoff July 10, 2008 Children from as far away as Milan, Italy and Chicago played in a chess tournament recently at the Chili (NY) public library. In the tournament, held June 26, 18 children ages 7 to 18 each played eight games, all against a different opponent. At the end of the eight games, Ethan Paszko and Ryan Patalano, both 14 and from Chili, were tied with 7 ½ wins apiece and played a timed “play-off” match to determine the winner. Ethan won the match and was declared the first-place winner, Ryan was the second-place winner, and 7-year-old Aaron Lazara of Chicago, who was visiting his grandmother in Chili, won third place. After the tournament, all the kids enjoyed pizza and pop courtesy of Mr. Adam DeSantis, the Chili Library Chess club volunteer director. The next tournament is planned for 1 p.m. July 24. Participants must be children (up to age 18) and have a working knowledge of chess. Call the library at (585) 889-2200, ext. 321, to register. Beginners are welcome to learn more about chess at the Chili Public Library’s children’s chess club from 1 to 5 p.m. today and Aug. 14. Psssttt...what about a beginners' class for adults???

Tanraj Sohal: A Canadian Chess Champion

Clarification about Tanraj Sohal winning the "Canadian Chess Championship" as reported in many internet news articles the past day or two. Please note the failure to mention a key fact in the recent reports: IN HIS AGE GROUP. This is not a dis on the young champion chessplayer, but a dis on people who evidently deliberately omitted key information from their report(s) when they picked up the original reports out of Canada and republished them in modified form, thus, at best, causing confusion and, at worst, doing it for political reasons. I found this information at Voiceonline.com under a date of April 11, 2008: #4. TANRAJ SOHAL WINS B.C. CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP IN HIS AGE GROUP Tanraj Sohal won the BC Provincial Chess Championship in his age group. The BC Chess Challenge was held on March 9 in Burnaby. Tanraj is a Grade 6 student from Surrey. He earlier won the Fraser Valley Regional Chess Championship held in Surrey on February 17. This is the sixth year in a row that Tanraj has won the Fraser Valley Regional and BC Provincial Chess Championships in his grade level. Tanraj, son of Dr. Parmjit Sohal, is a 2007 Canadian Chess Champion in his age group. He along with other provincial winners will be representing the BC Chess Team at the Canadian Chess Challenge to be held in Edmonton in May. This year the BC Chess Challenge Champions are Edwin Xu (Grade 1), Jonah Lee (Grade 2), Janak Awatramani (Grade 3), Jeremy Hui (Grade 4), Frank Cheng (Grade 5), Tanraj Sohal (Grade 6), Yifei Han (Grade 7), Joshua Renaud (Grade 8), Richard Huang (Grade 9), Henry Ji (Grade 10), Tedging Pan (Grade 11) and Bindy Cheng (Grade 12). I also find this information from the same source, dated May 24, 2008: #1. TANRAJ SOHAL WINS CANADIAN CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP AGAIN Tanraj Sohal has done it once again. The 11-year-old Grade 6 student from Surrey won the 2008 Canadian Chess Championship held in Edmonton, Alberta, on May 18-19 in his grade level. This is the fourth time Tanraj has won the Canadian Chess Championship trophy. Tanraj earlier won the 2008 Fraser Valley Regional in Surrey and BC Provincial Chess Championship held in Burnaby. Canadian Chess Challenge is the annual event where each province is represented by their 12 Provincial Champions (one player each from Grades 1 to 12). Qualification to the nationals begins with school events, then regional and provincial events. Canadian Chess Challenge is organized and sponsored by the Chess’n Math Association, Canada's National Scholastic Chess Organization. Each player plays nine round robin matches over two days in their respective grade against each of the provincial champions. Tanraj had a perfect score of 9/9 and defeated all other nine provincial champions. Overall BC got two first place trophies: Tanraj Sohal (Grade 6) and Janak Awatramani (Grade 3) and one second place trophy, Jonah Lee (Grade 2) and one third place trophy, Yifei Han (Grade 7).

GM Maurice Ashley

GM Maurice Ashley gave an interview on CNN. The Grandmaster is a dedicated and personable ambassador for chess, tireless in his promotion of the game to inner city youth, and a great role model. (Photo from GM Ashley's website - link below). Here is information from Chessbase:

Ashley on CNN: 'I just knew I would be a great chess player'10.07.2008 – Maurice Ashley is the first black chess grandmaster in history. He is also one of the games finest ambassadors, an ardent spokesman and advocate of the intellectual and character building effects in young people for over 15 years. In a short CNN report, part of the series on "Black in America", he speaks about the driving forces in his life and his career. We bring you Maurice unsquished.

The "unsquished" has to do with video sizing problems that made GM Ashley's head look somewhat flat and fat!

We have a 1999 in-depth interview from Ebony Magazine at Goddesschess. Enjoy!

Visit GM Ashley's website.

Philippines Chess News

This is the latest from one of my favorite chess columnists, from the Cebu Sun Star.com (Philippines): Friday, July 11, 2008 Pestaño: Controversies hound RP chess By Frank “Boy” Pestaño Chessmoso THE national chess scene is being rocked by controversies and it involves the major players of the land. Grandmasters Eugene Torre and Joey Antonio relinquished their participation in the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden, Germany on Nov. 12 to 25 by not participating in the grand finals to select the members of the team. It is being held in the Kaban ng Hiyas Bldg. in Mandaluyong and started last July 1. GM Eugene Torre issued an official statement that he does not have anything against the National Chess Federation of the Philippines’ (NCFP) regulation not to seed top players for the Olympiad. “It’s only fair, let’s give chance to others, especially the young. But if they still need my services, I would be very much willing to play for the country,” said Torre. “We want all the players, regardless of their titles (GMs, IMs or NMs) to participate in the qualifying tournament and earn their spots in the national team. We will not tolerate the old practice of seeding top players to the team,” said NCFP president Prospero Pichay in a short speech during the opening ceremony. GMs Mark Paragua and Darwin Laylo returned to the country from the United States to be able to compete in the tournament. Also playing are Dubai Open champion GM Wesley So, GM-elect Jayson Gonzales, GM Buenaventura “Bong” Villamayor and a host of IMs and NMs. Twelve players, led by top female player Catherine Perena and semifinal round winner Kimberly Jane Cunanan are seeing action in the women’s division. RATINGS. Fide recently released its July, 2008 ratings and the top Filipino player is 14-year-old Wesley So at 2577. Eugene Torre and Jayson Gonzales are tied for second and third with identical 2524. Paragua is rated 2523, Antonio has 2516 and Laylo is at 2504. It is very lamentable that Eugene is not playing. Eugene established a record when he made his 19th consecutive appearance in the 2006 Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy and moves just one short of tying the all-time record for most appearances held by the legendary Lajos Portisch of Hungary. Another controversy involving the top guns is the opinion issued by Honorary Fide president Florencio Campomanes Thursday questioning “the decision of the NCFP to enter into a contract with a Singapore-based group for the holding of at least four RP Opens in the next two years.” During the Asean Chess Confederation board meeting in Vietnam, the NCFP, through president Prospero Pichay, signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Singapore-based Intchess Asia to manage all its international competitions in the next two years, including four RP Opens. “We cannot just give the right to organize such big, national events to a group with no proven expertise in such undertaking,” Campomanes said. . . . . CEPCA. Our monthly tournament will be held this July 13, at the Deep Blue Café in SM starting at 2 p.m. Format is five rounds Swiss and time control will be based on the classification of the member as A,B and C. New members are welcome. I am also requesting all those who will play to bring a 1x1 picture for our new ID. The venue for the Kiddies and Juniors will be on July 12 at the Opascor Bldg. In front of M. Lhuiller Main office at 1 p.m. Format is seven rounds Swiss.

Supporting Local Chess: New Chess Club for St. Louis, MO

This place sounds fantastic! Story from South Side Journal Chess kings and queens get new castle By Dominic Immer Wednesday, July 9, 2008 12:06 PM CDT Local chess fans will soon be making a move. Fans who now play chess in coffeehouses, bars and restaurants will soon be checking opponents at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center, located at 4657 Maryland Avenue in the Central West End. The club is set to open July 17th. “Lots of cities have chess clubs. St. Louis is due for one,” said Tony Rich, executive director of the club. The three level, 6,000-square-foot building possesses an array of features including eight DGT chess boards, 8 hand-made wooden chess tables, 10 plasma screen televisions, video installation art and an adjustable lighting system. The primary colors of the club are black and white — the colors of a traditional chess board. The DGT chess boards can transmit games in progress to the plasma TVs for viewing by spectators. The TVs will also display other club information. Diana Thater, a video installation artist, created art for the chess club on six 46-inch LCD screens. Video installation art is art based on moving pictures. The art in this case recreates famous chess games, including the game of the century between Bobby Fischer and Donald Byrne. Nate Cohen of Cohen Architectural Woodworking in St. James, Mo., crafted the eight hand-made wooden chess tables for the chess center.Most of the money to begin the chess club came from Rex Sinquefield, the president and chairman of the chess club board. Sinquefield is a retired St. Louis investment banker and a political activist. He founded Dimensional Fund Advisors, investment company with his associate, David Booth. A main objective of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center is to promote the game of chess in area schools as a part of the curriculum. The First Move national program has already incorporated chess in five St. Louis public schools. “They learned about thinking critically and making decisions,” said Brian Zimerman, principal of Mann Elementary School in Tower Grove South. The chess club hopes to expand what First Move has done to include more grade levels and ultimately more schools. “There have been lots of research studies done, none of them scientifically rigorous, that have shown a nice relationship between cognitive abilities and improvement in their attendance records and a decrease in behavioral issues,” Rich said. The chess club wants to repeat those studies in a more scientific manner to prove the benefit of teaching chess in schools. Frank Van Bree is president and chief executive officer of UrbanFUTURE, which works with impoverished children in some city schools. His program is working with the club to expand the influence of chess in schools. Van Bree said that chess can continue to be useful in later grades, because as children’s thinking becomes more complex, so does chess. Chess can improve children’s self esteem and keep them out of trouble, Van Bree said, and the chess club would be a great place for children to spend time. Chess can have specific benefits for children in poverty, including helping them maintain some control over their world and helping them learn that considering the future is important, Van Bree said. “Poverty is a very reactive lifestyle,” he said. “If you can introduce chess, that’s all about planning two or three moves ahead.” While the chess club wants to attract new players, it also aims to provide a steady place to play for those already immersed in the game, Rich said. Members will receive several privileges including open play six days a week, discounted entry fees for club tournaments, and free use of the chess books and DVDs in the club library. The club also provides sets and clocks for matches. “We will have all the equipment that you need to play chess at the club,” Rich said. “All you have to do is bring your brain.” Rich wants the chess center to be an active and important part of the culture of St. Louis. “The Chess Club and Scholastic Center is going to be on par with places like the zoo and the history museum and the art museum,” he said. Rich looks forward to the club opening on July 17th. The club already has more than 60 members and Rich sees a lot of room for growth within St. Louis. He said about 750 people in the St. Louis area played in tournaments in the past year. His sales pitch to chess players is simple.“You have to see the club,” he said.

Disconnected from the Internet!

Oh for Goddess' sake! I finally get home at 6:50 p.m. this evening after a long hard day at the office and I cannot get online! What the hell? I run a check - run it again - everything is hooked up just fine, I just cannot get connected. So, I call the service number that shows up on my computer after the second time I ran a "connectivity test" and wait and wait and wait. Finally, I get connected to one of those goddess-awful voice-activated "customer service" thingies. After pressing various buttons and speaking slowly and distinctly into the telephone, I get a "special service announcement" and am told that due to an "upgrade" that happened last night, certain customers may now find that they cannot connect to the internet. Gee, tell me something I didn't know! After playing the message back three times, I discern that it has something to do with my security settings. I receive a number to call - a Microsoft number. Great, just great. Well, before resorting to the last resort of calling customer support at Microsoft, I try and fix the security settings myself. I do a work-around to bring up my internet browsers although I cannot browse anywhere, and reset my security settings. Didn't work. An hour and a half later, I find myself talking to a Microsoft technician who had a definite Indian accent (I recognized it - there are lots of Indian students attending the downtown Milwaukee School of Engineering and I hear the accent during lunch hours and going to and from the bus stops). I find out that - lo and behold - Microsoft and/or my firewall software has done an "update" that "may affect my connectivity." Okay..... So, my question is, what do I do? Well, the fellow said that my firewall software provider says a work-around is to reset my coverage (or whatever it's called) to "medium." I say okay, how do I do that. But he cannot help me with that, and by the way, it's not a recommended fix. The alternative is to "undo the fix." Yeah - right - like I understand what that means? Okay, so what do I do to get on the internet? He gives me a different number to call and a customer number or something like that. So, I call this other number and get a recording that says "due to an unusually large volume of calls...we are going to disconnect your butt right now. Please call back in approximately 32 years." Okay, maybe that last part is just a little bit exaggerated. It was more like 22 years - and 5 months - and 16 days - and 37 minutes - and 10 seconds, 9 seconds, 8 seconds... Based on what the first support tech told me, I bravely open up my firewall software and try first this, and then that, and then this, and then that. They sure don't make it easy. But eventually I get to a place where I can change a setting to "medium." So I do it. Then I try to exit without turning the software off all the way. That is a project in and of itself! Then I try, once again, to go online. This time it works! Eureka! I found it! The first thing I do (after checking my email, of course...) is to check out the latest news about this "download that may affect internet connectivity...". Supposedly a fix is in the works, that will be available for download - I have no idea when. In the meantime, try fix 1 or fix 2 - both of the fixes that my internet service provider tech told me about (although not recommended). Okay, so after going through all of this - and it's now several hours later, what I want to know is this: I have one computer and one telephone. I do not own a cell phone; I do not own a second computer that is somehow, miraculously, connected to some "other" line not affected by this latest Microsoft BALONEY SAUSAGE! So, I figured out a way to find out enough information tonight, at home, to get back online - and I'm absolutely amazed that I was able to do so. I am not a technologically competent person by any means! So, what if I'm an average person (which I am), and I cannot get online, how am I supposed to find out the "lastest news" about this disastrous software update that evidently disconnected half the world today from the internet??? Tonight I reined in my impatience and extremely bad temper long enough to listen to the Indian technician and was able to garner enough clues to figure out what to do for the temporary "fix" without having to wait 22 years plus plus plus to talk to a Microsoft technician. But what about someone who can't figure out how to do the temporary "fix?" I'm telling you, I am so steamed right now, you could fry eggs on my fingernails.

Robin Hood

People of a certain age will remember growing up watching old Errol Flynn "swashbuckler" movies on television - and one of his most famous rolls - that of Robin Hood. In later days two different versions of the legend of Robin Hood came out at the same time - one starring Kevin Costner and Mary Elizabeth Mastriantonio (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991) and an underrrated version that went straight to television rather than theatrical release, starring Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman (Robin Hood, 1991 TV). Both movies are utterly enchanting to me, well-acted, entertaining - and as different as night and day! Uma Thurman was smoking hot and spot on as a defiant Marian, who surrendered her virginity to the outlaw Robin rather than marry the Norman overlord (Guy) to whom she was promised. I've also read my share of Robin Hood novels. Just how many different versions of the legend of Robin Hood exist? I have no idea - but here's one more absolutely fascinating take on the legend of Robin Hood to add to the list, with my own comments duly noted in brackets [ ]. This one is from Barbara Walker's "A Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets:" Robin God of the Witches, with numerous variations: Robin Goodfellow, Robin son of Art, Robin the Bobbin, Robin Hood, or Robin Redbreast - the last apparently derived from memories of the Norman sacred king with blood-runes or geirs-odd carved in the flesh of his breast on his "red-letter day" (see Runes). [Oh my!] As Lord of the Hunt and a dying god he became the slain Cock Robin, whose executioner in the nursery rhyme did him in "with my wee bow and arrow" - a Saxon version of the Celtic Cu Chulainn who died at Mag Muirthemne bound to the sacred pillar and riddled with arrows.(1) The red-breasted bird of spring was Cock Robin's soul; the red was his blood, shed by a pagan sacrifice, though a pseudo-Christian legend tried to explain it in a different way. A robin tried to pluck away the thorns from Christ's crown, but only succeeded in tearing its own breast, so all robins had red breasts thereafter.(2) This fable failed to remove the curse of Cock Robin in the opinion of Christian authorities who knew quite well that he was a phallic god. In Cornwall, Robin meant a cock in the other sense: a penis. His surname Hood, or Hud, referred to the symbolic pine log, planted in Mother Earth as a sacred pillar. A pamphlet of 1639 showed Robin as a horned, hoofed, ithyphallic satyr, leading witches' revels in the company of a black dog and an owl.(3) [Both well known symbols of the ancient Mother Goddess, which the Roman Catholic Church of the day went out of its way to demonize in any way it could]. Robin Hood, Wizard of the Greenwood, was a real person or persons leading Sherwood Forest covens in the early 14th century, with a wife or paramour taking the role of the Goddess Maerin, or Marian, or Mari-Anna, the Saxon wudu-maer, literally the Mary or the Mother of the Grove. Great sacramental feasts in honor of Robin and his lady were remembered in popular rhymes nearly three centuries later, when he was "Robin the Bobbin, the big-bellied Ben, who ate more meat than fourscore men."(4) Family names can be found dating back to the "greenwood marriages" performed by heathen shamans, symbolized by the renegade Friar Tuck. Morrises and Morrisons descended from orgiastic Morris-dancers, also called Marian's morrice-men.(5) Like Robin (or Robinson), Morris dancers' May Day rites came from Moorish Spain. The original word was morisco, "Moorish."(6) [Actually, I think the tradition goes at least as far back as ancient Egypt's Muu dancers, some of whom wore high green crowns on their head, constructed of woven reeds - perhaps the origin of the much later "green man" dancers a/k/a Morris men.] Robin was Saracenic, from Rah-bin, "a seer," cognate with the Semitic rabba, "lord," reb or rabbi, a priest. Robin's cult penetrated northern Europe from roots in Moorish Spain.(7) The Iberian peninsula was not Christianized until the overthrow of its Arab governors in the 11th century. Like Scandinavia in the same period, it was a fount of pagan ideas and practices. (Actually, as I understand the history of the Iberian peninsula, the last of the Moors - Arabs - weren't finally expelled from the country until the famous last battle by the joint forces of Isabella and Ferdinand at Cordoba - yes, the same Isabella who funded Columbus' expedition to find the Northwest Passage to India in 1492). The common folk of England liked Robin, which is why they called him Goodfellow, or Puck, which descended from a word for "God." [What word for God???] He was supposed to right the wrongs inflicted on the peasants by the church. He stole the treasures of the rich clergy and nobles and bestowed them on the poor. By force of arms he maintained a heathen preserve in the wildwood, a sanctuary for heretics and others persecuted by the church. Popular legend said Robin was born of a virgin impregnated by Oberon, King of the Fairies. He traveled to fairyland, and was shown "many secrets which he never did open to the world."(8) Like the Greeks' Pan, Robin defended unspoiled land against the encroachment of towns. In country districts, each village set aside a plot of raw woodland, which was not to be disturbed, because it belonged to the Goodfellow, or the Good Man.(9) [The origin of the "Village Green"???] Elders of the Scottish church in 1594 exerted their utmost influence to abolish this Goodfellow's Croft, which they called the devil's acre, claiming it gave "great offence."(10) Mystery plays of the 16th century still continued to celebrate Robin, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Little John, and the other heathen heroes. A Churchwardens Account Book lists the prices of costumes for Robin and Marian as King and Queen of the May. The lady impersonating Marian wore a crown, a purple coif, a blue surcoat, a yellow skirt, and red sleeves.(11) In such a way did the church ingest pagan ceremonials by sponsorship, and eventually deprive them of serious meaning. Notes: (1) Larousse, 233. (2) Bowness, 38. (3) Graves, W.G., 441. (4) Spence, 109. (5) Graves, W.G., 441-43. (6) Hazlitt, 422. (7) Shah, 210; Ravensdale & Morgan, 153. (8) Keightley, 287, 289, 315-16. (9) W. Scott, 78. (10) Hazlitt, 283. (11) Hazlitt, 384-85, 520.

Ancient Navigation

The intrepid and incredibly brave folk who first travelled the seas thousands of years in little more than canoes have always fascinated me, as have the tales I grew up with studying history (my favorite subject) about the "first" explorers (all European, of course), to circumnavigate the globe, including Columbus whom, we are still taught, discovered America in 1492. (Image: Erich Lessing
A Phoenician trade ship as depicted on a second-century sarcophagus. Looks like a better ship than the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria!)

Now, the historical record is slowly being fleshed out, thanks to new discoveries and re-examinations of old records. The Chinese may have been the first to circumnavigate the globe; the Phoenicians may have been the first to circumnavigate the continent of Africa; we now known Vikings were the first people to visit the North America - unless you count nameless Europeans from the east and nameless Asians from the west who may have travelled across ice-filled oceans to reach both shores of North America 40,000 years ago!

This teaser on a story caught my eye tonight at Biblical Archaeology Review (July-August, 2008 issue):

Return of the Ancient Mariner

Writing almost 200 years after the events in question, Herodotus records in The Histories the Phoenicians’ claim to have sailed into dangerous, uncharted waters and circumnavigated Africa. It was either a fantastic—almost inconceivable—achievement or a wild hoax. Herodotus himself doubted the claim.

Enter Philip Beale. The former British naval officer and adventurer is reopening this ancient question. He intends to vindicate the Phoenicians’ claim—and he plans to do it in dramatic fashion: Having spent months overseeing the construction of an exact replica of a seventh-century B.C. Phoenician ship, Beale will skipper a crew of 20 on a ten-month odyssey around Africa.

The Phoenician Ship Expedition will depart from Arwad, Syria (i.e., ancient Phoenicia), in August 2008 and head south. After negotiating the dangers of the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, a critical point in the expedition, the voyage will continue up the west coast of Africa, through the Straits of Gibraltar and across the Mediterranean to return back to Syria in June 2009—ten months later and 17,000 miles wiser.

Twenty Squares

From Biblical Archaeological Review Strata Gallery:

A graffito version of the Royal Game of Ur, the “game of 20 squares.” This improvised board was scratched—possibly by bored soldiers—onto one of the human-headed winged bull gate sentinels from the palace of Sargon II (721–705 B.C.) in the city of Khorsabad, Iraq. Other improvised game boards have recently been discovered on the surfaces of other ancient structures.(Courtesy WikiMedia)

Who's Telling the Truth?

Read this report from the Guardian.co.uk that blames the current world food crisis on biofuels, according to a "secret report" prepared by the World Bank: Secret report: biofuel caused food crisis Internal World Bank study delivers blow to plant energy drive Aditya Chakrabortty The Guardian, Friday July 4, 2008 Aside from the fact that this story - from an unnamed source, citing a "secret report" prepared by an unnamed "internationally respected economist" employed by the World Bank - sounds hinky in the extreme (did The Guardian borrow the headline from an old edition of The National Inquirer or World News Reports?), the article does plainly state that the current "crisis" has been developing since at least 2002 - six years. BUT - changing world-wide weather patterns have NOTHING to do with the current situation; local and international markets have NOTHING to do with the current situation; past and present governmental policies have NOTHING to do with the current situation (other than the aforementioned mandate for biofuels allegedly diverting massive amounts of food and land into corn production for ethanol). Oh - and did I mention, population increases and rising standards of living in developing "third world" countries also have NOTHING to do with increased demand for food stuffs. Then, read this article from today's Wall Street Journal. I don't normally "buy" most of what is written in WSJ's editorial pages, but this article at least acknowledges a host of other factors involved in a complicated dance that has led over at least the last ten years to the current food "crisis." The Rich World and the Food Crisis By ADAM LERRICKJuly 8, 2008; Page A21 Leaders of the G-8 nations are gathered this week in Toyako, Japan, to root out the culprits in a food crisis that has moved hundreds of millions from subsistence to starvation. They need look no further than an old group photo. The G-8 countries' interventions have distorted global agricultural markets to the paralysis point. Politicians legislate price supports to enrich farm voters. Lobbies extort tariffs to block cheap food imports and subsidies to underwrite food exports at prices that destroy competitors in poor countries. Conservationists have agitated to set aside productive land and pay farmers not to grow. And now green energy advocates push ethanol quotas and tax credits that divert food into fuel. Don't blame speculators for the food crisis: It was already here when they arrived. Rather thank them for a wake-up call. Financial markets are driving today's prices to match expectations of tomorrow's values – the consensus of countless investors and producers is that the era of surpluses and cheap food is over. Yet even a credible promise that G-8 protectionist policies will be reversed would raise output down the road and drop prices at the corner grocery counter overnight. The new famine is not about a crisis in global supply. Markets are full of food that developing-nation consumers cannot afford to buy. Prices for rice, corn, wheat and soy beans, the staple crops for world sustenance, have doubled in a single year. This pinches families in developed countries who allocate 15% of their income to food. In poor countries, where many spend 75% of their earnings to eat, real wages have been cut by a life-changing one-third. A decade of progress in reducing poverty is being erased. In response, countries whose people are being hit hard are adopting policies that mortgage their economic future. From Mexico and Indonesia to Egypt and Côte d'Ivoire, governments have responded to protest and riots with backward measures that keep domestic prices down but choke off incentives to plant and harvest more. One-third of the world's population now lives under food price controls. Subsidies to keep rice and bread on the table are eating up scarce funds. Schools will not open, roads and ports will not be built, electricity will not power expansion. Central banks are giving up growth to contain an inflation imported from abroad. National food security is the new overriding concern. India and Vietnam, the world's second and third biggest exporters of rice, have banned foreign sales. Wheat suppliers from Australia to Argentina are restricting shipments. In China, massive new export tariffs keep fertilizer at home to lessen farming costs. For a decade, the world's demand for food has grown faster than the supply. Throughout the developing world, hundreds of millions of people have migrated from the country where they fed themselves to the city where they must buy their food. A new middle class is eating more and eating better. Seven pounds of grain are required to produce a single pound of meat; China, India and Brazil are eating 40% more beef than in 2000. Global food stocks have collapsed to a 50-day reserve, their lowest level in half a century. Even as the mountains of grain in government warehouses have eroded, G-8 members have been holding back supply. Poor farmers have been deprived of a livelihood. Who will plant when rich world producers – protected from imports and guaranteed a subsidized gain on exports – dump crops on world markets, pushing global prices below the real cost of production? In the name of conservation, U.S. farmers have been bribed to keep fields fallow – 36 million acres of cropland, the size of Iowa, at a taxpayer cost of $2 billion a year. In Europe, large farmers have been compelled to leave 10% of their holdings idle. Food and fuel have been placed in competition for crops and land. A 10% content mandate for every gallon of gas, and $7 billion of subsidies, now divert one-third of the U.S. corn crop to ethanol, and have driven soybean acreage to its lowest level in more than a decade. Even aid is tainted. The U.S. provides one-half of world food relief, but is the only major donor that gives in kind and not in cash. Thousands of tons of cereals are transported by barge along the Mississippi, navigated across two oceans on high-cost American ships and delivered by truck in Africa – where stockpiles of local grain are rotting for want of buyers. The same $2 billion worth of aid spent buying local foodstuffs would increase benefits for poor consumers dramatically and build a market for the crops of farmers. While a myopic U.S. Congress indulges in the biggest farm bill ever, and France proposes to pay old-style farmers more to overproduce, high prices are breaking the G-8 grip on food. In Ethiopia's Rift valley, farmers are pooling funds to buy $75,000 John Deere harvesters. Swedish and English entrepreneurs are assembling small land holdings in Ukraine and Russia to build world-class cereal producers. In Sudan, Abu Dhabi's sovereign fund is planting 70,000 acres with corn and wheat. Monsanto has promised new modified seeds that will double crop yields and, this time, finicky European bans will not prevail. When the dust settles, there will be a time of plenty in developing lands – and far fewer Porsche dealerships in the U.S. farm belt. Mr. Lerrick is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This op-ed is based on a speech he delivered at the 2008 AEI world forum. This article blames it all on the wealthy nations - presuambly the United States and the countries of the EU. So, I'd like to know what countries are "dumping" food on the world markets below cost? If this is happening, how come people can't afford food? Would not "dumping" of food on the world market depress prices - that is what the author is, in fact, arguing. But that's not happening now, is it. So that argument flies out the window. The author acknowledges that there is plenty of food to go around, even with "one third of USA's corn crop" diverted to ethanol production. It's not a matter of supply he says, it's a matter of price, particularly in the so-called "poor" countries. This "crisis" did not develop overnight, and government policies that placate people rioting in the streets for cheap bread will only subsidize irrational behavior.

Supporting Local Chess: Southwest Chess Club, Hales Corners, WI

Allen Becker sent me the following information on July 6th; unfortunately it got caught in my yahoo email addy spam filter, which is strange because I've received other emails from the club in my regular mail with no problem. Anyway, here is the info: NEW CLUB LOCATION The Southwest Chess Club meets every Thursday night from 6:00 PM in the town of Greendale, Wisconsin. We meet at the Layton State Bank (downstairs), at 5850 Broad Street, Greendale (NOTE NEW LOCATION!. Here is a map to the club. Parking is available at the bank; enter through the door on the south side of the bank (next to Parking lot). Due to flooding problems, our Hales Corners Village Hall location is not available until (perhaps) September 2008. We will meet at the Greendale Layton State Bank through July and August, or until further notice. CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP Southwest Chess Club Championship July 10, 17, 24, 31 & August 7 & 14 (all in Greendale Layton State Bank location)6-Round Swiss in One Section. Game/100. USCF Rated.Entry Fee: $7. Must be a member to participate. SWCC Membership only $10/year (can join when registering for the tournament). (Two ½ point byes available in rounds 1 through 5 if requested at least 2-days in advance; no byes available for rounds 6.)TD is Becker; ATDs are Grochowski/Fogec. THURSDAY NIGHT LECTURE SERIES - Summer 2008 Begins this Thursday night at 6:00 PM - Allen Becker will present a game Every Thursday night at 6 PM (right before the usual games begin). Instructive lectures. The series is entitled “Making Chess Fun”. We need volunteers to present lectures/games/instruction through July and August. Please see Allen Becker if you're interested. Our club website: http://home.wi.rr.com/swcc/ Our Blog (notice two new topics; please contribute and suggest other topics): http://swccchess.blogspot.com/ Our schedule for 2008: http://home.wi.rr.com/swcc/Calendar.pdf